


Kill Your Heroes

by StilesBastille24



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Baz is worried and in love, Fix-It Fic for Wayward Son, M/M, Simon POV, Simon and Baz work through some of their issues, Simon is hurting and in love, because they are precious and deserve the world, by talking! #themagicofcommunication, this is all about their love for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27400888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StilesBastille24/pseuds/StilesBastille24
Summary: “Why can’t you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?”Simon jerks back like he's been slapped. Because what Baz just said - it doesn't make sense. It's wrong. Because if Simon doesn't know how to make himself happy anymore, then it's simply not possible that he knows how to make Baz happy either."Baz," Simon can't even look at him, he can't see the disappointment that will haunt Baz’s grey eyes, "you don't have to keep pretending. I know this," he motions weakly between them, "is over. That it has been over."
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 6
Kudos: 111





	Kill Your Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Title from AWOLNATION's song of the same name because it is the most Simon Snow song I have heard and no one can change my mind. 
> 
> I might be in the minority, but I loved Wayward Son because of how heart breakingly real Simon's pain and insecurities were. I loved how painfully real it as for Baz to love him through all of that, blind to Simon's self-doubts because Baz has never doubted Simon. 
> 
> But they still deserved a happy ending. Penny needed to just pump her breaks for a hot sec and let my precious children have their heart to heart. 
> 
> So. . . I'mma let you finish, Penny, but first -

_“Why can’t you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?”_

Simon jerks back like he's been slapped. Because what Baz just said - it doesn't make sense. It's wrong. Because if Simon doesn't know how to make himself happy anymore, then it's simply not possible that he knows how to make Baz happy either. 

"Baz," Simon can't even look at him, he can't see the disappointment that will haunt Baz’s grey eyes, "you don't have to keep pretending. I know this," he motions weakly between them, "is over. That it has been over." 

Baz snatches Simon's hand and holds it fiercely. "What the absolutely fuck are you talking about, Snow?" 

Simon feels trapped. If this was _before_ , Simon would be closing in on himself, feeling his magic well up and overwhelmed, heading for an explosion of uncontained magic. But it isn't _before_ , it's now and there's nothing. Simon is nothing. 

Simon yanks his hand back, balling it into a fist that trembles against his chest. "I'm talking about this. About us. About how you don't have to keep pretending. Keep pitying me." 

Baz shoves a hand roughly though his hair, his lips curling down in displeasure. "You should stop talking, Snow, if you have nothing intelligent to say." 

Simon's eyes flutter shut. He thinks of what he wanted to say to Baz before all of this bullshit road trip to America happened. He takes a stuttering breath before opening his eyes and looking at Baz. " _When someone shows you who they are, believe them._ You've seen me, Baz. Truly seen me. In the White Chapel, you saw how my magic was a fraud, how I had to steal magic from the world to have any of my own. None of that was me. This," he grabs at the center of his chest, "is me, an empty vessel. I was never something special, I was a parasite. And now -" he drops his head and stares at the sand between his legs, " - now I'm nothing, Baz. Like I’ve always really been. Nothing." 

Silence stretches taut between them. Simon feels his chest grow tight, like there's a band constricting his ribs and every breath is a fight. But he also feels clean. Honest for the first time in his life. 

All of it shatters when Baz roughly grabs Simon's face in between his cold palms. He forces Simon's face up, until his furious grey eyes are burning into Simon's blue ones. "Are you out of your fucking mind, Simon? You are everything. Everything!" 

Disbelief, confusion, hurt. They all wells up and swallows Simon whole. "Stop," he begs, hands clawing at Baz's, desperate to break his hold. "Stop lying," he pleads. "It's over, okay, all of this. You don't have to pretend anymore. You don't have to pretend I'm something I never was." 

"Over?" Baz's smooth skin creases in confusion. "What are you - are you breaking up with me?" Baz is suddenly standing and brushing the sand viciously from his pants. "Is that what you think you're doing?" 

Simon presses up onto his knees, the grains of sand biting into his knees, a sharp burn against the flood of despair he's swallowed by. "When we started this, I was someone different. Something different. I was someone you could belong with. Someone with magic and power and a destiny. But now? This is the real me. A magical fuck up who cursed himself with dragon wings and a devil's tail. I don't belong in that world, your world, anymore. I'm nothing, Baz. I have nothing. Not magic, not power, not a destiny. This is who I truly am." He holds his hands out, displaying all these crucial pieces that he's missing. All the empty spots that use to match up so well with Baz. 

Baz stares down at Simon like he can't believe what he's seeing. Or like he's really seeing Simon for the first time. "Is that what you think? You think I fell in love with you because of your magic? Because of your Chosen One destiny?"

Simon doesn't know why he's asking. It's obvious that it's true. What else is there to love about him? He was cast off by his parents, who must have known, somehow, that he was a fake. A magic eating fraud. He bounced around from one care home to the next, always the foster kid no one wanted permanently. 

He had fooled Baz just like he had fooled himself into believing he was someone that mattered. Someone the world needed. Except the truth is the entire magical world would have been so much better off if Simon had never been there at all. 

"Simon," Baz says, sounding lost and angry, "I have never, for one second, given a shit about any of that." He lifts his gaze, looks out at the ocean over Simon’s head. Like he’s too angry, too lost to even see Simon right now. 

“You could have anything, anyone,” Simon presses, his voice quiet. He needs to make Baz understand. Baz is stubborn, he’s always been stubborn, and he’s always fought Simon. But this isn’t like those other times, those other stupid fights. “I’m going to talk to Dr. Wellbelove. I’m going to ask him to clip my wings and tail. I’m - I’m not going back to school. I’ve never been any good at school. I’m going to find a job instead. Something Normal. And I’m going to live my life like a Normal. Because that’s what I am, Baz, Normal.”

Baz’s eyes dip down to Simon’s face, then flick swiftly away. “So that’s it, is it? You’ve got the whole bloody thing planned out. And I’m just not in it, this Normal life of yours?”

“Why would you want to be?” Simon asks helplessly. 

Baz sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. His jaw is clenched, his cheek bones cut sharp into his white-grey skin. He hisses out a breath. Simon watches every movement with the utmost attention. Baz has been the center of Simon’s universe for so long, he can’t imagine how the world will keep spinning without him in it. 

Baz’s hands curl like claws around his rib cage as he asks, “Do you care for me so little, Snow?” 

Simon inhales sharply, shocked. He’s scrambling to his feet to reassure Baz that this is the farthest thing from truth before he’s even thought through the motion. It’s a shock to his heart when Baz steps quickly away from him, maintaining an icy distance. “Baz - you’re not listening to me -”

“I’m listening perfectly well, thank you,” Baz says crisply. “You think I’m some kind of magic and power hungry person who only ever looked at you twice because you had both of those things. And now that you don’t, of course there’s nothing there for me, why would there be. Accordingly to you, those were the only good parts of you anyway, right, Simon?” 

It should feel like a relief, Baz breathing life into all of the worst things Simon has known about himself. But it doesn’t. It feels like Baz is yelling at him, is throwing all of Simon’s worst parts at him and - and what? Being mad at him for them? Mad that Simon can’t just get his magic back? 

“You are so excruciatingly stupid,” Baz says, his eyes pinched closed. 

Simon’s mouth slips open. He doesn’t know what’s happening right now. Why isn’t Baz accepting what they both know? Why isn’t he letting Simon bow out? Simon is doing this for Baz, can’t he see that? He has to. It’s so obvious. Baz can have anything he desires, and there’s nothing left to desire about Simon. Without Simon, he’ll be free to live the life he should be living, with someone worth loving. 

Baz's eyes snap open and fix angrily on Simon. “I don’t give a flying fuck about your missing magic, Snow, because I never gave a fuck about your magic. No, that’s a lie. I was envious of your magic. Of all this power at your literal fingertips that you didn’t have any idea how to control. But I never gave a damn about it as part of you. That’s not why I fell in love with you, you fucking idiot.” Baz is breathing hard, his shoulders heaving up and down as he rants at Simon. 

“Baz -” Simon tries to interrupt, to set them back where they are supposed to be. 

“No!” Baz shouts. “You have done more than your fair share of talking and all of it has been absolute shit. So you are done talking.” He glares heatedly at Simon, as if daring him to speak. Simon doesn’t dare. 

“You, you stupid fucking prick, are absolutely _everything_. You are so much more than anything as petty and useless as magic or power. You are so fucking brave, always, no matter what, no matter if it could cost you your life, you charge in with no plan, only this stupid belief that you’ll save the day. And you always fucking do. It doesn’t matter what is going wrong, what part of the world is on fire, you always swoop in and do what has to be done, no matter how much it might hurt you. I could never do that, Simon, I’m scared of almost everything.”

Baz shakes his head, his long hair swaying into his face. Simon wants to reach up, he wants to brush it back behind Baz’s ears, but that’s not something Simon can do anymore. Because Simon has built up this huge wall about when it’s okay to touch Baz. And now he’s built up this huge wall between them for why Baz is better off without him. Baz has never been farther away from Simon than he is right now, with only two feet of sandy shoreline spread between them. 

“You love with your whole fucking heart, Simon,” Baz continues, glaring at Simon like this is the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard. “You take one look at someone, decide they are worthy, and then suddenly you’re willing to do anything to help them, to make them happy, to be someone they can rely on. You saw me at my worst, after Nicodemus, surrounding myself by fire in Hampshire, ready to end the creature I’d become, and you risked your life to save me. You risked everything to save me, Simon, you changed your life to fit me in it, and now you’re telling me there’s no space in my life for you? You are the center of my life, Simon! There is no me without you. I wouldn’t _want_ there to be.” 

In horror, Simon realizes Baz is crying, thin streaks of tears tracking down his angular cheeks. Simon tries to find his voice, tries to say something, anything, but there’s nothing. His voice is trapped beneath his self-loathing, his fear that this is the last time he’ll ever hear Baz say he loves him. 

“Simon,” Baz says brokenly. He sinks down on his knees, griming up the knees of his pants in the wet sand. Finally, finally, he looks at Simon. “Why can’t you believe me? Why can’t you believe that I will always choose you? That it will never be a choice. You are the only thing in this world that I want, magic or no magic, wings or no wings. I want you, Simon, only you. I love you, only you, always you, always only you.” 

It’s like something cracks in Simon. Maybe it does. Maybe it’s his heart. Maybe it’s the ice he’s been trapped since last summer. One second he’s staring at Baz, frozen and scared. The next, he’s launched himself at him. 

He wrenches Baz’s arms away from his chest, he crawls into his lap, he tangles his arms around Baz’s back, and he cries. 

He cries for all the things he thought he knew. All the horrible, awful things he thought were true. That Baz didn’t need him, didn’t want him, didn’t love him. All the horrible, awful things he thought about himself. That he was unlovable, unworthy of love; that he was nothing. 

Baz clutches Simon to him, fingernails digging into Simon’s soft sides, his face tucked into the warm hollow of Simon’s neck. It’s not like at White Chapel. Baz doesn’t tell him everything will be okay. He cries with Simon, maybe for Simon, maybe for both of them. 

“I’m sorry,” Simon pleads. “I’m so sorry. I’m so messed up. I’m just - I’m useless and - “

“You saved my life,” Baz cuts him off, “again, Simon. You saved my life again. You used your dragon wings and your stupid bloody courage to save me. How can you think such horrible things about yourself? How can you think any of it’s true? You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever known, everything about you. Believe me, please, Simon, believe _me_.”

“It’s so hard,” Simon confides. “Everything is, without magic. Even if I was no good at it and hardly used it, it was still there, a part of me. And now it’s gone and I can feel it missing, like there’s a hole in me that I can’t fill. And watching you and Penny, watching how easy it is for you to cast spells and how I’m just in the way, with my fucking wings, it’s so hard.”

“Then tell me,” Baz begs, “and I’ll tell Penny to fuck off with her magic. I’ll learn to do things the Normal way. I’ll do whatever you need, Simon, you just have to tell me. You just have to let me in.”

“No!” Simon grabs desperately at Baz as if it were even possible for them to be more closely intertwined. “I don’t want that, Baz. I don’t want you and Penny to hide your magic or feel like you have to. It’s me, I’m the one that’s broken. I’m the one that can’t find a reason to get off the couch because it seems so hard. So hard to go out when I have to hide my wings all the time. Or my fucking tail. Or the hole in me.”

“Then we won’t. We’ll join the damn Renaissance Fair. We’ll travel with a bunch of shitty Americans with even shittier accents. Or we’ll talk to Dr. Wellbelove, if that’s what you want. But we can do this, Simon. It doesn’t have to be so hard. Let me be there for you, let me help you. That’s all I want. I want to be with you, Simon, I want to love you until I have no other choice but to pass into the next world. And even then, I’ll be trying to claw my way after you. Wherever you go, Simon, that’s where I want to be, that’s where I’m meant to be. The Crucible showed us when we were eleven. I’m not going to start doubting that now. Not ever.” 

It’s warm here in Baz’s arms, in this safe space Simon has carved out against his chest. It’s bright too, in a way the world hasn’t been since Simon stopped going to Uni. Bright like the world’s colors are turning back on after having been dulled for a very long time. “That’s what I want too, Baz. All of it.”

“Then it’s yours,” Baz says, his words achingly tender. 

“But what if I’m not enough? What if it keeps being hard to go from day to day?”

“Then we figure it out together. Whatever it takes, Snow, we figure it all out together. I believe in you. Your magic might be gone, but the things that make you who you are? The courage, the love, the determination, those have never changed.” Baz rests his cheek against the top of Simon’s head, breathing in the scent of Simon’s ocean salty curls. 

“I do, you know,” Simon says, “believe you. When you say you love me, I believe you. Everything else might be going to shit in my head, but not not how I feel about you. I love you, Baz. I love you so much and I’m such shit at it and -”

Baz pulls back abruptly, he stares agitatedly at Simon as he says, “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Simon does. He goggles at Baz wondering if he’s managed to fuck this whole thing up. It seemed like they were really talking. Really saying all the things that needed to be said. And even then, somehow, Simon ruined it. Ruined it by saying -

Baz exhales slowly. Then prods Simon with a pinch on his hip. “Say it again,” he whispers. 

It clicks into place for Simon then. A smile curves slowly into place. “I love you, Baz.”

“Again,” Baz demands. 

“I love you,” Simon says. He leans forward, presses a kiss to Baz’s left cheek. “I love you.” He kisses Baz’s right cheek. “I love you.” He kisses the tip of his nose. His eyelids. The furrow between his brows. And with every kiss, Simon promises, “I love you.”

Behind them, the sun is setting slowly into the Pacific Ocean. Simon presses his lips softly against Baz’s. “I love you, Baz. I always will.”

Baz inhales, like he’s breathing in Simon’s words and making them a part of his soul. “I love you, Simon Snow. So very much.”

Simon’s smiling as he kisses his boyfriend at the very edge of America. And everything might not be fixed between them. There are probably many more things they need to talk about. Secrets and secret hurts to share. But this is a start. 

This is the start of something new, something real. Something magical.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://wistful-wisterias.tumblr.com)


End file.
